Wikipedia talk:Simple English Wikipedia

Misplaced discussions moved to talk:MediaWiki, Wikipedia talk:Wikipedians, and Wikipedia:Simple talk.

It can't always be simple

While I like it that some articles such as one in the regular English wikipedia can be written in the simple words to explain them better, it's sometimes impossible to use all simple words. For example, for people in a computer related article such as the one on a Graphics processing unit who don't know what RAM, a CPU, a hard drive and computer bus is, the article itself would have to have an explanation of all these things, rather than links to them. Sometimes you just need to do the research and look up the terms in order to understand an article, there's no way around it. You're just going to have to read the links to find out what these terms are. MY main reason for using this wikipedia is to have certain things "translated" from complex english to simple, but some of these articles are so basic, it seems like it's a guide to teach a 5 year old. 66.189.36.188 (talk) 05:48, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Archives

• Archive (2004/05)
• Archive (2006/07)

1,000 words?!

How the hell are we going to build a remotely informational encyclopedia with 1,000 words. For example, "grunge," "Afghanistan," and "Charmander" are definitely not in the top 1,000 words but does that mean we should erase them? Change "Afghanistan" to "the bad Asia country"? This isn't a big deal but I know someone understands this. Tezkag72 (talk) 23:32, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

I don't know, but this is definitely a welcome addition to Wikipedia. I'm pretty good at grammar, but a lot of the Wikipedia main articles confuse me with extremely scientific words.

Anyway, hopefully this version can use words in such a way so it isn't labeled as "The Retarded Man's Wikipedia" or something like that. 68.51.41.46 (talk) 05:08, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I think some confusion may exist in this area. Firstly, the average native English speaker uses about 1000 in their normal conversation and only strays from these on occasion; secondly, words that are not in the 1000 most certainly can be used, they just must be defined either by using a wikilink to the term on simple.wikipedia.org or else to the definition of the word on simple.wiktionary.org. So Afghanistan can certainly be used in an article by linking to the article Afghanistan, and the word "rehearse" can be used by linking to the definition rehearse over at Wiktionary. We have to remember that all kinds of reasons exist for the need for us to have a Simple English Wikipedia; these include the following readers needing to access information; new English speakers, children, poorly educated people, people with a learning disability, amongst others. It would be a pretty poor indictment of our encyclopedia if only those with large vocabularies could use it. Also, using Simple English helps us keep articles easy to read and easy to understand. If you look through the Standard English Wikipedia you might notice that many articles over there have become increasingly complex and hard to read or understand. Some articles over there can actually only be properly understood by readers who are all ready experts in the subject being read. Writing in Simple English can be a challenge, but with practice it becomes easier. Hope this helps! :-) fr33kman ^{t - c} 05:47, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Without a doubt, some of the words in wikipedia are really hard to understand. Kellp109

Surely "Simpletons' Wiki" would be more appropriate than the sexist term Retarded Man's WP? Some of the more technical entries on English WP - eg Metamaterial or some of the mathematical formulae (eg Ishimori equation or Roothaan equations)- could do with translating into Simple English so 'curious person coming across the term' can understand them. (Suggestion for mathematical formulae 'over here' - something along the lines of 'This formula was invented by (x). It is used in (specific scientific/mathematical etc) area and is used to measure/define/whatever.' — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.104.132.41 (talk • contribs)

Simple english - what a fantastic good idea!!!

I just found this page by luck. I am german and I must say, that this is one of the most best new concepts of Wikipedia. At least is my english too bad (just touristic words) to write here :-( So I will be only sometimes a visitor :-) and keep on writing in the german Wikipedia. Have success!! --81.173.150.36 (talk) 18:37, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Thank you very much. It is nice to have people who think Simple English Wikipedia is useful! Yotcmdr ^{=talk to the commander=} 18:40, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Thank you! Mythdon (talk • changes) 18:41, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Must disagree at this one. This 'simple English' confuses me. IMHO, normal english easier to understand. Looks like IE switched to Quirks-mode, only it's not IE but Wikipedia! -- 212.189.46.155 (talk) 13:03, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Numbers

The "Simple English" section of the page shows numbers in two different styles e.g. 1000 and 2,000. I think it would be better to edit this so they're consistent; I'd do it myself, but I'm too new! :-) The Wikipedia Manual of Style recommends commas: Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style#Large_numbers. Wednesday 7pm (talk) 02:22, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

Feel free to be bold and make that change yourself. Thanks for pointing that out! Kansan (talk) 02:23, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

Thank you! But there are no edit links on the page. If I click "view source", it says "This page is currently semi-protected and can be edited only by established registered users." I am registered, but not yet established. Wednesday 7pm (talk) 02:33, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

You're right, I'll take a look at the page and see if I can fix the things you so helpfully pointed out. :) You'll be an "established user" in a few days after a few more changes. Welcome once again! —Classical Esther^talk 02:36, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

I have fixed them. PiRSquared17 02:38, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

Should you wish to make any more changes to the article, I've gone ahead and unprotected the article, as it's been protected since January 2008 and the administrator who protected it is no longer an administrator. Kansan (talk) 02:44, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

Thank you all! Wednesday 7pm (talk) 03:01, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

The word "different"

• The word "different" has a bad habit of tagging along with number words merely as an unnecessary emphatic (e.g. "two different species" are merely "two species", as two non-different species are one same species). Thus, in "Since some articles need more than 2,000 different words '", what does "different" mean? Would "the fat cat killed the fat rat" be "7 different words" by this rule? I once read in a newspaper article that a vandal "slashed 132 separate tyres in 56 different cars". Can the newspaper's editor please prove that all the tyres were separate (i.e. not both tyres of a double-wheel), and that all the cars were different (e.g. two sky-blue 1965 Ford Anglias with all the same accessories are to me not two different cars)? Anthony Appleyard (talk) 10:14, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

No, different=differently written. 80.98.179.160 (talk) 14:37, 28 December 2017 (UTC)

Suggested Simple English words

The USA's Voice of America radio stations use a variation of this, called Special English. Maybe Simple English Wikipedia can use VOA's Special English as a guide. Banjodog (talk) 00:25, 5 May 2016 (UTC)

We often use the VOA lists as a guide.--Peterdownunder (talk) 08:07, 6 May 2016 (UTC)

(Semi-)protect

I fully appreciate that we try hard to protect pages here as little as possible. And I also fully appreciate that this page is not vandalized all that often. Still, it's a "Wikipedia:" namespace page—effectively a policy or welcome page. I think it's important for a page like this to be correct whenever a new or prospective contributor looks at it.

Looking at the page history, almost all recent changes have been either vandalism or reversion of vandalism. And on the whole, I'm not sure why any user who is not autoconfirmed would ever need to change it. Indeed, while there have been one or two legitimate IP changes over time, for the most part I'd guess that IPs won't have been around long enough to make accurate, useful changes to the page. So I'd propose this page be permanently semi-protected, with IPs wanting an edit making a request here on the talk page. StevenJ81 (talk) 15:07, 27 August 2018 (UTC)